Private Rogue

Chapter 74

We were on our way to Manhattan when the satellite phone rang. Mo-bot had it connected to her computer and was interrogating its registry.

She handed me the phone, but kept it plugged into her machine.

“Hello?” I said when I answered.

“Mr. Morgan?”

I recognized Andreyev’s voice immediately.

“Yes.”

“You said the pilot survived. Is he still with you?”

“Yeah, he’s with me.”

“Then we might be able to make a trade,” Andreyev said. “The woman and children for the pilot.”

“I’ll have to check. Can I reach you on this number?”

I looked at Mo-bot and signaled to my watch. She nodded and indicated she’d had enough time to run a trace.

“Of course,” Andreyev replied.

“I’ll call you when I have an answer.”

I hung up and turned to Floyd.

“He’s offering Beth, Danny and Maria in exchange for you.”

“We do it,” Floyd said immediately. “It’s not even in question.”

“I know this is going to be hard for you to hear,” I replied. “But I think it’s a bad idea. He’ll take you and keep Beth and the children as leverage. Most likely kill you all when he has whatever it is he wants.”

“We can stop that happening,” Floyd countered. “Hold him to his deal. Or lure him out and take them.”

I frowned. Both those suggestions were extremely high-risk.

“Mo?” I asked.

She shook her head. “He’s routing the call through a number of networks. It’s impossible to trace.”

I looked at Justine, who was focused on the snow-flanked highway. She glanced over and shrugged.

“We make the trade,” Floyd said firmly.

I didn’t see what other options we had and was about to reply when I saw a familiar expression cross Mo-bot’s face. The cat most definitely had got the cream.

“There is another way,” she said. “I’ve found an old number on the phone. A couple incoming calls made two weeks ago from the same cell tower near the Pentagon we found when we tracked Andreyev’s call. I think this number might belong to our mole in the Department of Defense.”